St. Landry democrat., 1887-06-18

God and yourself are there you distinctly
cali their names, and listen, and wait,
and sit gazing into Heaven.
Pass on now, and see Stephen looking
upon Christ. Ny text says he saw the
Son of Man at the right hand of God.
Just how Christ looked in this world, just
how He looks in Heaven, we cannot say.
A writer in the time of Christ says, de-
scribing the Saviour's personal appear
ance, that He had blue eyes and light
complexion, and very graceful struct-
ure; but suppose it was all guess-work.
The painters of the different ages have
tried to imagine the features of Christ,
and put them upon canvas; but we will
have to wait until with our own eyes we
see Him and with our own ears we can
hear Him. And yet there Is way of
seeing and hearing Him now. I have to
tell you that unless you see and hear Christ
on earth, you will never see and hear Him
in Heaven. Look There He is. Be-
hold the lamb of God. Can you not see
Him? Then pray to God to take the
scales off your eyes. Look that way
try to look that way. His voice comes
down to you this day-comes down to
the blindest, to the deafest soul, saying:
Look unto me, all we ends of the earth,
and be We saved, for l am God, and there
is none else" Proclamation of universal
emancipation for all slaves. Proclama-
ton of universal amnesty for all rebels.
Ahasuerus gathered the Babylonish no
bles to his table; George | entertained
the lords of England at banquet; Ma
poleon III welcomed the Car OF Russia
and the Sultan of Turkey to his
feast; the Emperor of Germany was
glad to have our minister, George Ban
croft, sit down with him at his table;
but tell. me, ye who know most OF the
worlds history, what other king ever
asked the abandoned, and the forlorn,
and the wretched and the outcast to
come and sit down beside him? o, won
derful invitation! You can take it to-
day and stand at the head of the darkest
alley in all this city, and say: Come
Clothes for your rags, salve for your
sores, a throne for your eternal reign
ing" A Christ that talks like that,
and acts like that, and pardons like
that-do you wonder that Stephen
stood looking at Him? | hope to spend
eternity doing the same thing. l must
see Him. I must look upon that face
once clouded with my sin, but now
radiant with my pardon. I want to
touch that hand that knocked off
my shackles l want to hear that voice
which pronounced my deliverance. Be
hold Him, little children, for if you live
to three score years and ten, you will see
none so fair Behold Him, We aged ones,
for He only can shine through the dim
ness of your failing eyesight. Behold
Him, earth. Behold him, Heaven. What
a moment when all the nations of the
saved shall gather around Christ! All
faces that way All thrones that way,
gazing, gazing on Jesus.
His worth if all the nations knew,
Sure the whole earth would love Him too.
I pass on now and look at Stephen
stoned The world has always wanted
to get rid of good men. Their very life
is an assault upon wickedness. Out with
Stephen through the gates of the city.
Down with him over the precipices. Let
every man come up and drop stone
upon his head. But these men did not
so much kill Stephen as they killed them
selves. Every stone rebounded upon
them. While these murderers were trans
fixed by the scorn of all good men
Stephen lives in the admiration of all
Stephen alive. So all good men must
Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. 1t
is no eulogy of man to say that every
body likes him. Show me anyone who
is doing all his duty to state or church,
and I will show you scores Of men who
utterly abhor him.
If all men speak well of you, it is be-
cause you are either laggard or a dolt.
If a steamer makes rapid progress
through the waves, the water will boil
and foam all around it. Brave soldiers
of Jesus Christ will hear the carbines
click. When | see man with voice, and
money, and influence all on the right
side, and some caricature him, and some
sneer at him, and some denounce him, and
men who pretend to be actuated by right
motives conspire to cripple him, to cast
him out, to destroy him, say: stephen
stoned" When I see man in some
great moral or religious reform battling
against grog-shops, exposing wick
edness in high places, by active
means trying to purify the church and
better the worlds estate, and | find
that the newspapers anathematize him,
and men, even good men, oppose him
and denounce him, because, though he
does good, he does not do it in their
way, I say: "Stephen stoned" The
world, with infinite spite, took after
John Frederick Oberlin and Robert
Moffat, and Paul, and Stephen of the text.
But you notice, my friends, that while
they assaulted him they did not succeed
really in killing him. You may assault
a good man, but you cannot kill him.
On the day of his death, Stephen spoke
before few people in the Sanhedrim;
this Sabbath morning he addressed
all Christendom. Paul the Apostle
stood on Mars Hill addressing a
handful of philosophers who knew not SO
much about science as modern school
girl. To-day he talks to all the millions
Of Christendom about the wonders of
justification and the glories of resurrec-
ton. John Wesley was howled down
by the mob to whom he preached, and
thew threw bricks at him, and they de-
nounced him, and they jostled him and
they spat upon him, and yet to-day, in
all lands, he is admitted to be the great
father of Methodism. Booths bullet
vacated the presidential chair but from
that spot of coagulated blood on the
floor in the box of Ford's Theater there
sprang up the new life Of a nation.
Stephen stoned; but Stephen alive.
Pass on now, and see Stephen in his
IT. 4 1,01, nrhf Vxyoc